Lobby group hits out at Peris over euthanasia comments

Northern Territory Labor Senator Nova Peris is urging people to make submissions on a Greens-sponsored bill to allow terminally ill people to get help to take their own lives.

ABC News

A Christian group has hit out at Labor Senator Nova Peris after the MP revealed she is strongly pro-euthanasia.

Senator Peris, a Labor Party politician from the Northern Territory, said she backed a Greens bill expected to be debated in October that would allow some people to get help to end their lives.

We need to be able to do the right thing by the people who are living in horrific situations

Senator Nova Peris

"There is a significant amount of public support out there and you know we need to be able to do the right thing by the people who are living in horrific situations," Senator Peris said.

"They are living in pain day-in, day-out."

Senator Peris is part of the committee looking into the draft Dying with Dignity bill, which is currently taking submissions from the public.

She said she had spoken directly to four terminally people who wanted to end their life.

"[I have] listened face to face to these four people pleading for us to support what is such a difficult passage of death so to speak and to give them a bit of dignity and humanity about the way that they live the last few months of their life," Senator Peris said.

But prominent anti-euthanasia group the Australian Christian Lobby said Ms Peris was new to parliament and should investigate the issue more thoroughly.

"I would urge her to have a good look at the evidence of the many parliamentary enquiries that have been done at a state and a federal level," said the lobby's manager, director Lyle Shelton.

Mr Shelton, who was in the NT last month speaking to people about the issue, said where euthanasia had been tried in the past it had ultimately led to people dying against their wishes.

The bill is expected to be put to a conscience vote in the Senate in October after public submissions are sought.

Senator Nova Peris said short-lived legislation that saw voluntary euthanasia legalised in the Territory in 1995 shows there is support in the Territory.

In 1995 the Northern Territory became the first jurisdiction in the world to explicitly legalise euthanasia, as long as the person was mentally competent, had a terminal illness and was assessed by a team of doctors and a psychiatrist.

The bill was in 1997 rendered ineffective after a vote in federal parliament after four people had already used the euthanasia laws to get assistance to end their own lives.

Since that time the topic of voluntary euthanasia again becoming legal in the Northern Territory has been raised repeatedly.